Waiting for Godot
The beginning of a new year is when I always feel rather down and a little bit sad. Although I try to keep myself away from the usual cliches of New Year Decisions, it is often difficult to withstand the pressure of the start of every new chapter. This is the season of evaluating yourself and thinking of all that you've done so far or are yet to do. After this, you "begin" making the firm decisions about finally breaking up with the bad habits or making some fateful move.
Naturally, we all dream of becoming better or making our lives better. The trouble is, this often requires a lot of changes, especially regarding oneself. To be honest, I concluded that I don't want to change myself much. On the one hand, I feel too old for more drastic changes. On another hand, I only want to bring what I already have to the next level.
Looking at my artistic and musical work so far, I can't say that I'm completely unsatisfied. I'm proud of everything that I achieved so far over many years while developing myself as a multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, and simply an artist. Especially with the fact that I only had a handful of people who had faithfully followed me on this thorny path. Unfortunately, despite all the work, effort, and not giving up on chasing windmills, I still don't have a firm and solid career.
Not that I'm not aware of my qualities so I desperately need some formal proof. Also, it's not that I didn't manage to make ends meet through various music-based activities for more than a decade now. However, society will never take you seriously enough if you don't provide some tangible evidence. The pressure of obtaining this is exactly what I would like to free myself of.
Lately, with nostalgia, I often think about my years as a pupil and a student, when creativity and music were my biggest joy and escape from worries. Back then, I still haven't carried this burden of expecting some concrete success. However, nowadays I'm well aware of my potential, so the burden is getting more and more heavy to carry on my own.
Some people used to give me "friendly advice" that I should do something else besides art and music. Something "concrete", that would guarantee me security and success. Although I'm formally educated in several other areas, I never given this much thought. First of all, I was scared that music would become just a hobby to put away in a closet whenever some job calls. I'm almost certain it would happen this way, therefore I never went down this path, despite all the problems and uncertainties I'm facing today.
Art and music are my calling and the best that I can offer as a person. All that remains for me is to continue learning, creating, and developing myself further, in the hope that my work will finally be recognized by someone who can and wants to help me get to the next level.